Litigation on the Rise in Japan

7/21/2005

Japan saw a burst of litgation in the 1980s and 1990s. Research by Assistant Professor Glenn Hoetker shows that "Japan’s turn to litigation can best be attributed to an increase in the number of judges and lawyers and the economic downturn that struck the country after 1990."

Institutional change and economic activitiy played large roles in the changing climate in Japan. Hoetker and co-author Tom Ginsburg looked at lawsuits filed between 1986 and 2001.

Their forthcoming paper is titled, “The Unreluctant Litigator? An Empirical Analysis of Japan’s Turn to Litigation.”